Big Girls Use the Potty!

We just finished potty training our 22 month old daughter and this book was the one that worked the BEST for us.

PROS
(there are so many, so I'll just start from the beginning and move through the book)
- First page there is a place to write your daughter's name, as in "This book belongs to..." My daughter can recognize her name and I wrote it with a sharpie in large capital letters in the space provided before giving her the book. When she opened it up and saw that her name was there, she was absolutely thrilled! This book is special just for her! Hooray!
- The next page has a note to parents that tells you exactly how to use the book and the sticker chart that comes with it. This is really helpful.
- It comes with it's OWN STICKER CHART AND STICKERS! Yes, you can make your own, and buy stickers. Yes you can buy a chart with stickers on the store for like $14+, but honestly, having it all in one place was AMAZING! We purchased the paperback version and it was less than $5! You can't get a better deal anywhere. And yes, some people don't want to use stickers and with some children stickers don't work. But there is only one place in the text that mentions "I get a star" and it's not in sticker form, so if your method eschews this kind of thing, you can just cut out the chart and stickers and put them aside and your child will never know that they're missing.
------ More about the sticker chart - We used the stickers and the sticker chart. Honestly, even though my daughter really likes stickers, she is still too young to necessarily understand the concept of a sticker on a chart as a reward (22 months old). However, using the sticker chart was helpful in creating a visual display of her success. Each day we would count (I would count - she can only count to 2) the number of stars on the chart and I would give her lots of praise and love, celebrating her accomplishments. There are places for 40 stars, 4 rows of 10. At the end of these rows is a spot for a special round sticker featuring the teddy bear from the story. It goes from Star, to Superstar, to Megastar, to Big Girl! There are 80 star stickers included, so for each star you put on the chart, you can also give one to your daughter (to wear or do whatever with). With regard to the big round stickers, there is only 1 extra of the Big Girl sticker. In the beginning we made putting a sticker on the chart part of the potty routine after drying hands. However, pretty soon this got to be too much of a thing, and we dropped it altogether with me just putting the sticker on the chart while she was washing her hands. Still, as noted above, the chart was most useful as a visualization of our daughter's success, both for her and for us to keep track of how she was doing.
- The story itself is comprised of text, captions, and photographs. This makes the narrative very versatile. Parents can modify what they focus on and how they read each page. The photographs also help make the story more real for the child. They see another child doing something and they want to do it too. Children of potty training age innately want to do what other children are doing. The little girl in the story serves as a model for your daughter to follow.
- The story is wonderful for modeling positive potty-training behavior. It follows a little girl who is potty-training. Unlike other books, the girl is only in diapers in ONE photo. After that it's all undies and potties and potty-training. The little girl is excited and enthusiastic with a big smile on her face throughout the ENTIRE book.
- There are NO NEGATIVE associations with the potty or potty training. Don't even put those ideas in your child's head or reinforce them through stories. This book is all about the joy and fun of potty training.
- It starts with the fun stuff - underpants! different kinds of potties! The lead character says "The pink one is for me!" (this is very different from some other books that say - this potty is NOT for me).
- The story first goes through step-by-step the potty routine with the teddy. The little girl teaches her teddy to use the potty. One review said that this book was only useful if you're potty training a teddy bear. Clearly that reviewer hasn't read much literature on potty training. Books like Teri Crane's best-seller, "Potty Train Your Child in Just One Day" advocate FIRST having your child teach a doll or stuffed animal how to use the potty. In doing so they go through the process of learning the steps before they have to do it themselves. This makes the learning process easier. Our daughter absolutely loved her Potty Training with Elmo DVD and yes, she did put her stuffed Elmo on the potty. But she also learned how to use the potty herself by doing so. Ask anyone who has potty trained a child and whether it was part of their method or not, I bet their child tried to put their doll or stuffed animal on the potty. That's why dolls are important toys for both boys and girls, because children learn about the world around them by observing and modeling behavior.
- This is one of the FEW potty books that actually has a LEGITIMATE STEP-BY-STEP potty routine - WITH NUMBERS! 1. Introduce teddy to the potty, 2. Tell teddy to listen to his body and when he needs to go, sits on the potty and try, 3. Teddy pees in the potty! "That means you used the potty right- just look inside and see." Excitement and proof of achievement!, 4. Wiping with toilet paper, 5. Wash hands, 6. Dry hands (and "have a little kiss! x") Yay!
- Throughout the step-by-step process, the little girl is encouraging her teddy with positive, supportive messages "Big girls use the potty. I bet you can do it, too!" , "see what you can do" , "You can do it if you try!" It's not about being able to do it or not doing it, it's about trying.
- After the step-by-step there is the requisite page addressing accidents. I really like the way this book does it. Instead of the message, "You had an accident. It's ok" - which is the message most potty books have - the message in THIS book is that each day is different, sometimes you may have an accident, and some days you might not have any, but "The most important thing is to do your best and try." This is PERFECT! It lets your child know, without actually condoning or encouraging it, that accidents are ok and that they happen and are a natural part of potty-training. But it also ends with the message that ideally you should try to not have accidents, and the most important thing is that you're trying to learn how to use the potty.
- The next page has the little girl going through the steps herself, but in an abbreviated form. So, again, for the reviews that said it didn't show the girl using the potty, they need to re-read the book. There are 5 photos on this page: 1. the little girl sitting on the potty, 2. holding toilet paper, 3. washing her hands, 4. drying her hands, 5. getting a star. Each photo has a caption too. And, as noted above regarding modeling behavior, the text reads "Now I will try it, Teddy. If you can do it, so can I!"
- The final page ends with a positive message that the child is saying good-bye to diapers because now she knows just what to do (she has learned the steps necessary for using the potty). She can use the potty "just like big girls do!" Hooray for becoming a big girl!

NEUTRAL/CONS
- You do need to do some work before giving this to your child. To get the most out of this book, a parent or guardian needs to read the instructions, probably give it a good read-through, write their child's name on the first page, carefully remove the sticker chart from the middle (use staple removers to pry up the staples and then to push them back down), and cut out the sticker pages from the front and back of the book with scissors.
- The book is VERY pink. We try to avoid this color when possible - not because there's anything wrong with pink, pink is awesome, it's just a lighter shade of red, but there is a whole spectrum of amazing colors, and "girl things" do not have to be pink.

IN SUM
This is absolutely the BEST potty training book we've found - and we've read a bunch (at least 10). This book is not only a book that you can read to your daughter while she sits on the potty, but it is also a book designed to TEACH your daughter how to use the potty. It is designed to have your daughter WANT to do the things that the little girl is doing - saying good-bye to diapers, getting undies, getting a potty, learning how to use the potty, using the potty, and becoming a big girl! It provides instructions for parents on how to use the book and also comes with stickers and a sticker chart. It follows a method demonstrated to work by child development and child psychology experts. It worked for us (in conjunction with a modified potty-training method from Jamie Glowacki's "Oh Crap! Potty Training").

Buy it New in Paper-back from the store (best price and you'll get the stickers and chart). You won't regret it! I HIGHLY recommend this book to all my friends who are thinking about potty training their children.

My daughter got this book for Christmas when she was 18 months. I can not count how many times she has asked the whole family to read her this book. She talks about Molly Matthews (the little girl in the book) like she knows her. She uses the ideas in the book to learn the steps to going potty. The book rhymes and is a short easy read. The pictures are cute and comes with a sticker chart which is the best reward system we have found on our journey. I would recommend this book to anyone with a little girl getting ready to potty train. If anything were to happen to our copy I would definitely buy a replacement in a second.

I have been working on potty training my 18month and got her this book for Christmas. Everytime she has to go she picks this book up and we go right to the potty. Of course while she goes she always wants me to read this book to her lol. Also it has a bear on a potty so now she wants to put her bear on the potty to which I hate so I luckly found a doll potty which her bear now sits on when she goes.

I think having pictures of actual kids sitting on the potty is more appealing for little ones, but because the pictures are not cartoonish, the anatomy is of course concealed and the book doesn't actually show pee or poo in the potty. The whole line of DK books are done sooooo well. They are sturdy (the extra money to get the board book design is totally worth it) and kids love to look at them.

My daughter loves this book? We started reading it to her at eighteen months just to show her the concept of pottying. Then we set a potty out at two years old. She totLly gets it and loves to read this book while sitting on the potty. It's heat and perfect for girls. I'm really thankful to the authors for presenting it in a straightforward but sweet way for girls.

Although it has many colorful pictures, my daughter did not care too much for it. The problem it seem because it shows more of the little girl teaching her stuff bear to potty train than it show her doing it. My toddler learn by seeing and I think it could have been more successful had it showed the steps with little girl. I liked the brightness of the pictures and we both love the sticker chart that came with the book. It might work better with other toddlers than it did with mine.

This book is not good for teaching about potty training because the only time in the book where they go through the steps it's really the teddy bear on the potty and not the girl. The book is boring also and does not capture the attention of my 2 year old unlike the book "Potty". But the chart and stickers are nice

I like the pictures but everything seemed so packed within each page. It would be nicer if they can have the pictures bigger for each pages and more pages so it would be easier to point out to my daughter what's going on in the pictures. but I could see how it could make it more expensive.

While the sticker chart is very useful, they story itself is not entertaining and confusing for a little one. There are too many photos on the pages and doesn't allow your little one to "read" the book for herself. I only used the book twice since she had no interest except in the star chart.

Such a great book with easy steps for little ones to follow and comprehend and my daughter loved that it was photos of a "real baby", this really helped, especially with a first born because they have no one their age to model good potty habits for them (moma certainly can't sit on the training potty!) we even got the boy version for my son who loved his just as much

this book has definitely helped encourage my 2 1/2 yr to want to actually sit on the potty and make an attempt. potty training her has been slow going and not very successful so far, but she really likes this book and whatever helps her is good in my opinion.

This book looked like what we wanted - a photo pictorial about a little girl learning to use the potty. FALSE.
This book is about her stuffed bear learning to use the potty. Which is utterly unhelpful. We already purchased an Elmo potty book that had a similar issue and my kiddo couldn't care less about it. I wish I'd read the reviews on this first before I purchased it... I made the mistake of giving it to my daughter to look at on her own and she tore out the stickers so now we can't return it.

I like the pictures but everything seemed so packed within each page. It would be nicer if they can have the pictures bigger for each pages and more pages so it would be easier to point out to my daughter what's going on in the pictures. but I could see how it could make it more expensive.

While the sticker chart is very useful, they story itself is not entertaining and confusing for a little one. There are too many photos on the pages and doesn't allow your little one to "read" the book for herself. I only used the book twice since she had no interest except in the star chart.

Such a great book with easy steps for little ones to follow and comprehend and my daughter loved that it was photos of a "real baby", this really helped, especially with a first born because they have no one their age to model good potty habits for them (moma certainly can't sit on the training potty!) we even got the boy version for my son who loved his just as much

this book has definitely helped encourage my 2 1/2 yr to want to actually sit on the potty and make an attempt. potty training her has been slow going and not very successful so far, but she really likes this book and whatever helps her is good in my opinion.

This book looked like what we wanted - a photo pictorial about a little girl learning to use the potty. FALSE.
This book is about her stuffed bear learning to use the potty. Which is utterly unhelpful. We already purchased an Elmo potty book that had a similar issue and my kiddo couldn't care less about it. I wish I'd read the reviews on this first before I purchased it... I made the mistake of giving it to my daughter to look at on her own and she tore out the stickers so now we can't return it.

This book made my daughter get potty trained in 2 weeks, I couldn't believe my luck! She was 2 years old and I probably read this book for about couple of hundred times in 2 weeks, she got so used to it that when she run to the potty she would grab the book and ask me to read for her. And she would ask it again and again. We then carried on reading for another couple of months. She made me buy all the underware the same color and the under t shirt too. It was a lot of fun!

I bought this because I liked that it showed little girls, my daughters age, sitting on potties. The story is kind of complicated and it doesn't flow well.

I do like like the pictures and the fact that it comes with reward stickers that match the stickers that the little girl receives in the book.